


simple truths about

by perpetualskies



Category: Sand Castle (2017)
Genre: Do Not Repost to Other Sites, Light Jealousy, M/M, alternative summary: sometimes seeing the bigger picture...is worse, getting tipsy with your NCO in the back of a humvee as a love language, my friend who hasn't read the fic called it 'just some sensible fumbling'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26204698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetualskies/pseuds/perpetualskies
Summary: Harper wakes up in the middle of the night to find Matt missing from his bunk. It’s not the first time that this happens either.
Relationships: James Harper/Matt Ocre
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	simple truths about

**Author's Note:**

> This is a remix of/inspired by Viskovie’s amazing fic “Electric Chapel,” which in this case means I took the premise of the fic and had my own go at it because I feel we _all_ deserve a little more Matt and Harper in the back of a Humvee. 
> 
> Title from Voxtrot’s “Trepanation Party.” Comments are ❤.

Harper wakes with a certain sense of premonition, feels his mind shape around it while he’s still tangled in a dream. It’s messy, all fractured images of things he’d rather not return to, neither in waking nor in sleep. He turns onto his back and listens; accounts for Enzo, Burton, Chutsky. Doesn’t know how but simply _knows_ that Matt’s not there. He gives the kid a good couple of minutes, in case he just went to the bathroom; when nothing happens, he sits up, sighing, feels for his boots, then for his gun.

He laces the boots up in the hallway, walks down the stairs past the larger-than-life portrait of a man that is apparently _exorbitantly_ good at hiding biological weapons of mass destruction; outside, he turns left, and after a little while left again.

The night air’s cool and crisp and clears his head immediately. It’s quiet in a way that doesn’t come by easy in Iraq. It’s not like he doesn’t _get_ why Matt keeps doing it. It’s just that _getting it_ and _following orders_ are two very different things.

He finds him in the usual spot, which is both a relief and just that little bit concerning. He’s down a row of vehicles parked on the south side of the camp, a quiet, hidden-away place where no one ever seems to come looking, at least when they don’t know what to look _for_. These vehicles aren’t regularly in use and Matt has proven good at figuring out these sort of nifty things, and figuring them out _fast_. He doesn’t look at all surprised or guilty or even remotely inconvenienced when Harper comes upon him in the back seat of a Humvee that has a satellite dish mounted where usually there would be a turret. It’s almost like he has been waiting for him, and Harper prefers to move on from that thought as soon as it has formed.

“Ocre,” Harper says, voice stern, or at least aiming for it, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Sir?” Matt replies, as if Harper actually has to explain it to him.

“What did I tell you about sneaking out of the barracks?”

“You said that it’s, umm. _Bad?_ ” Matt gives it a go, and the corner of Harper’s mouth twitches up involuntarily, despite or maybe because of the absurdity of it all. The kid is tipsy for sure, smiling too much and too easy, his cheeks tinged red, eyes blown a little bit too wide. One of his hands is wrapped around the neck of a nondescript looking bottle, his thumb circling the mouth, and he’s just _staring_ at Harper, as if he _knows_ he’s going to get away with it— _again_.

This isn’t the first time Harper’s found him out here, not the first time, too, that he’s got a bottle with him, taking a sip from it even as Harper watches on, and Harper is mildly impressed despite himself by how he’d managed to find _and_ hide booze in this place, clearly not snagged from the communal stash they turn to, the one that’s tolerated, even encouraged by command from time to time.

Knows, too, that the sneaking out hasn’t just started in Baqubah either, that it goes as far back as Kuwait _at least_. Had watched him come back to the tent a couple of times too early in the morning, has thought, too, that maybe he hadn’t been out there alone, at the far end of the staging area where the hangars open to a wide plane of desert and an endless line of unperturbed horizon, in short: a real quiet place if you needed it to be. Harper had let it slide those times, admittedly more for his own sake. Didn’t want the headache of explaining this to anyone _or_ himself; didn’t like the way it'd made him feel, or that it'd made him feel something in the first place. Had thought, back then, that maybe it really would be better if Matt weren’t to ship out, and not just for Matt’s own sake; had known, too, that a broken hand alone just would not do.

Now Matt has gone back to the sneaking, the evading, the eschewing, the flaunting of it even, and Harper can’t pretend he’s not aware of it anymore, made it impossible to pretend since the first time that he had caught him out, the first time that he’d _let him off_ , almost but never _quite_ careless, surrounding himself with contraband, and not giving nearly as much of a fuck as Harper wished or expected that he would.

Harper is staring now, and that in and of itself is a problem, a growing one. He knows his options here, and so does Matt. Something is different this night, although he can’t quite put his finger on it; maybe it’s something as innocuous as the moon, the brightness of it slashing through the darkness like a sickle; maybe it is the way Matt’s looking at him; maybe it is the way that Harper’s looking back.

“Scoot,” Harper says and Matt grins and swings his legs out of the way so Harper can climb onto the back seat with him, press his back against the opposite door, incriminate himself, turn from enabler to accomplice, certainly risk more than Matt should they be found. Matt swings his legs back up, tangles them comfortably with Harper’s, knee pressing into knee, thigh pressing into shin.

Matt hands him the bottle not asking if he wants it, uses his then free hands to search his pockets for a smoke. Harper takes a swig and watches the cigarette hang dangerously from Matt’s mouth while he is fumbling with the lighter. There’s something in the air, he’s sure of it, static that washed in with the moonlight maybe, something that makes Harper feel bolder, more audacious, less worrying about _what ifs_.

“You want?” Matt asks, after he successfully lights it. Harper has never seen him smoke; in fact, he has witnessed him _refuse_ smokes, many times. It makes him wonder what else the kid is up to, makes him realize that he has no idea where Matt’s even at half of the time they’re off the clock. He tries to keep an eye on him, to check in, to make sure he isn’t slowly going off the deep end. Doesn’t do it with _just_ Matt, of course, but Matt’s the one who needs it most, who cuts himself on all the wrong things, who goes into the field without a fucking chest _or_ back plate _because there weren’t enough to go around_. Matt’s stumbling through this war more than anything else and Harper, for one, is determined to send him back home to his mother sound and largely unscathed, not wrapped up in a fucking flag.

Harper shakes his head at Matt’s offer, opting for another swig from the bottle instead. Matt shrugs, blowing out smoke towards the ceiling. Distantly, Harper wonders just how much exactly he should be concerned with this behaviour. Matt leans his head back against the window, his knee restless and jittery against Harper’s; Harper doesn’t speak, just watches how the moonlight cuts across his face.

“I like the nights out here,” Matt says after a while. He’s looking out the back window, his face tipped up towards the sky. “If you look only up you can pretend you’re anywhere you want,” he explains. “Unless you’re really good at constellations, I guess; then you just know you’re absolutely _fucking_ nowhere.”

Harper lets out a sigh. He’s got absolutely no intention of talking about _somewhere_ ; you start thinking about some- _thing_ , some- _where_ , maybe even some- _one_ , you’re bound to screw it up, and not just for yourself. Besides, Matt doesn’t seem to mind his lack of input; he finishes his cigarette, leans down to stub it out, then tosses it outside. He settles back in, wiggles about to get a little more comfortable, his legs stretching out even longer in the process. He tilts his head as if to rest it on his shoulder and looks at Harper, his smile a little worn-out but still genuine and soft.

“You ever thought of not being in the army?” he asks.

“No,” Harper replies truthfully. “But I have thought of _this_ ,” he says, and closes a hand around Matt’s ankle, his fingers sliding up.

It lights them both up, a background thrum that spikes and releases something tangible and live into the night around them. Everything about Matt suddenly seems so easy: easy to disregard _months_ of trying not to do this, easy to say, “C’mere,” and watch him scramble across the back seat, hesitating and then easing himself right into Harper’s lap. Easy, so easy to seek out his mouth, to guide him exactly where he wants him, which is close, and closer still. Matt puts himself in motion with a readiness that Harper never even dared to dream of. Harper has half the mind to get the open bottle out of the way before somebody knocks it over. Matt’s _everywhere_ , agile and sweet and just a little frantic. God, does he feel good, Harper thinks, and he has barely put his hands on him, has barely made this into something that you do not ask about, you do not tell.

Harper kisses him cautiously at first, wants Matt himself to take what he most wants, what he most needs. Matt’s clearly getting a little frustrated by it, a little impatient, and Harper loves bringing it out in him, this quiet, pleasant kid that probably never even cut in line, never not handed in his homework or not said thanks after a meal.

It makes Harper smile into the kiss before he licks and pushes his tongue deeper; Matt makes a noise, something surprised and open-ended, feeds it directly into Harper’s mouth. Harper cups both hands around his ass, wants this to be a proper memory come morning, wants Matt to be embarrassed by how easily he gives under his touch. His hands move to the front of Matt’s fatigues, undoing then pushing them down to just below the hemline of his briefs. His hands slide up along Matt’s thighs, reaching his hips, then rucking up his shirt. He brushes his fingers across Matt’s abdomen and Matt sucks in a breath, evidently sensitive there. He looks transfixed, keeps watching Harper’s hand between their bodies as if the entire damn outcome of this war depended on where Harper put it next. Harper presses his palm flat against Matt’s stomach, looks up at him as he moves it down, letting it cup itself around the front of his briefs, and Matt gasps, pushing his hips forward and up.

Harper lets Matt rut into his hand and it does something to him, seeing him like this, feeling him so freely wanting and responsive to his touch. Harper barely has to do a thing, lends himself to Matt’s desperate little strife for contact, adding a little pressure, a little squeeze from time to time. He has no doubt he’d come from this, _just_ from this; he _wants_ him to, which makes it all the more difficult to stop and take away his hand.

He grips Matt’s hips instead, holding them back with little effort. Matt stills, thrown off, makes a frustrated, needy little sound. He makes for Harper’s neck instead, no doubt in a bid to persuade him, and Harper lets him for a moment, then another, before he asks, “Where did you get the booze?”

Matt’s mouth stops in its track towards his jawline, his lips still hot and wet against his skin. There is a moment of deliberation, then, “Ramirez.”

“The keys?”

“I stole them.”

“Who were you out with in Kuwait?”

Matt pulls back, his eyes blown open in surprise. “No one,” he says, looking at once completely sober. “I swear.”

Harper feels him try to cant his hips forward, and doesn’t let him. Something nervous flits across Matt’s face, as if he knows that Harper would, in fact, keep at this for as long as he deems fit. Harper looks at him evenly, his posture conveying no urgency, no lack of patience whatsoever. He spans his hand across Matt’s abdomen to let his thumb slowly run up the hard line of Matt’s cock, grazing the head, just once, coming away wet. Matt bites his lip, looking so pretty when he does.

“Not once?” he asks.

“Not once,” Matt says, voice firm, and shakes his head. He leans back in to kiss him, slow and meaningful and earnest; it feels like passing a note under the table, like writing a confession in the margin of a book that could fall into anybody’s hands. Matt draws back to look at him, fingers splayed against his cheek, then presses his forehead against Harper’s and slowly eases his hips forward, and Harper lets him, rewards him with a hand that slips between his legs, that draws from Matt the sweetest little sound. Matt clings to him, fingers digging into his shoulders; he buries his face in Harper’s neck, his breath coming in shaky little puffs across his skin.

Matt doesn’t take long now, gives himself over without reservation, feels febrile, molten in his arms; bucks into Harper’s hand and underscores it with a single helpless whine while Harper strokes him through it, whispering _easy now, easy_ and _that’s it_.

It’s hot in the car, stuffy and smelling of exactly everything they’ve been doing. They are the epitome of workplace impropriety, and Harper doesn’t give a shit. He frees his own cock, knuckles slick with Matt’s come, presses his face into Matt’s neck and gets himself off, swift and graceless and tremendously satisfying.

Matt’s hair behind his ear is sticky with sweat when Harper nuzzles into it. Matt lets out a little sigh, but doesn’t move away. Belatedly, Harper remembers that they won’t have any chance to shower. He winds an arm around Matt’s waist, holding him close, not caring in the least.

They stay like that for what seems like a small forever, a subdued, genuine reprieve that doesn’t come by often on a tour. Matt is the first to speak, asking, “Remember Baghdad?” He sounds so tired, and Harper hates that he can’t simply pull him close, watch over him until he falls asleep. He draws his hand across the small of Matt’s back and lets it settle on his hip; pulls back to look at him and gently combs his fingers through his hair.

“What about it?” he replies.

“I took _so many_ fucking showers,” Matt says and Harper smiles, slow and languid and content, watches Matt’s face light up for him in turn before he meets him for a kiss.

Harper gets out of the Humvee first. The night is unperturbed, could in a different time be even considered peaceful, the stars stitched copious and bright across the sky. He dumps what little there is left of the booze and rolls the bottle under the car, hoping that it will seem random enough, figuring that, in any case, it’s better than being outright caught with it.

“The keys,” he says when Matt scrambles out after him.

Matt’s face falls, clearly not having expected this. “Sergeant, please—” he starts, but Harper cuts him off.

“You will get caught, Matt.”

“I won’t,” Matt pleads, and then, “This isn’t _fair_.”

Harper holds out his hand, giving no indication that there’s _any_ room left for discussion. Matt shoots him a _look_ , then fishes the keys out of the side pocket of his fatigues. He looks like there is _quite_ the amount of choice words he would like to share with Harper at that moment but he is smart enough to recognise that while he might get a pass on booze and breaking curfew and even coming in his Sergeant’s lap, he won’t on this.

“Good boy,” Harper says, and takes the lead.

They make their way back to their room in silence. At the top of the stairs, Harper catches Matt’s wrist and pulls him back in, smiling at the surprised little _oompf_ it gets him in response. Matt looks pissed about the keys still but he lets Harper kiss him, lets him feel him up right there in the hallway, his body easy, attuned already to his touch. Matt’s hands are on his shirt, scrambling for purchase; they’re _right outside_ the captain’s room, and all it does is spur him on.

Harper wishes that he didn’t have to pull away, possibly ever; he also knows that they have already pushed their luck far enough. He yields one last press of lips, then gets ahold of Matt’s hands and gently pries them away.

“You get some sleep now, Private,” Harper says, a rakish little smile in place, and doesn’t let Matt get in another kiss.

The tension in Matt’s body eases, knowing that there is no point in trying to argue. “You’re awful,” he says, pouting, his gaze still trained on Harper’s lips.

Harper just shrugs, walking Matt slowly back towards their room. “I will be sure to include that in my sitrep,” he replies, his voice dropped to a whisper, and Matt can only shake his head and roll his eyes and smile, softly, and tiredly, and all for him.

They take their boots off in the corridor, then tiptoe back into the near-darkness of their quarters. Matt stumbles over one of the plastic chairs that scrapes across the floor and they both freeze, but Burton and Chutz continue soundly snoring, while Enzo’s curled towards the wall, giving no indication that they woke him up. It makes Harper want to laugh from how _surreal_ everything about this night is. He holds it in, giving Matt a little nudge to move along.

Harper watches Matt climb up, then gets into his own bunk. There is some squeaking of the springs before Matt sighs and then falls quiet. Harper lies awake a little longer, feeling a pleasant buzz course through him, a little from the alcohol, a lot from how Matt had felt, had moved under his hands, from how so fucking _right_ it’d seemed, if only for one night.

He turns onto his side, trying to think decidedly of nothing. It doesn’t _quite_ work, but Harper figures it’s alright. Some _things_ , some _ones_ are worth losing sleep over. Are all the reason not to screw it up.

Matt looks absolutely done for the next morning, keeps yawning and rubbing at his eyes all the way to the pumping station, so much that even Mahmoud asks if he’s alright. Harper suppresses a smile and decidedly doesn’t look over; Matt mumbles something about not having been able to fall asleep before yawning once again. They’re kept continuously busy as per usual; the water flows as slow as always; none of the debris looks like it is getting any less. At lunch, Sergeant Robinson comes over and strikes up a conversation; out of the corner of his eyes, Harper sees Matt lie back on the ground and pull his cap over his eyes.

It is a long day but then again, _all_ of their days are. By the time they get back to the camp, all that Harper wants is maybe some more of that penne and his bunk, regardless of how terrible that mattress actually is. And maybe, _maybe_ —he looks at Matt and that alone makes something in his chest turn over. Matt looks exhausted, but then again, they _all_ do; hard not to, in a place that won’t even let you wash your face. He knocks his knee into Matt’s before Chutz comes clambering down from the turret; Matt grins, and for the briefest moment pushes back.

**Author's Note:**

> Harper: wow this is probably going to be a one time thing, don’t make this out to be something it isn’t, just chill, you’re his superior
> 
> Harper less than one (1) day later: nevermind i think i love him


End file.
